DTP’s president’s message: Let’s go. The woodshed is this way… You come along too. You need to hear this as well.

Wise parents understood that the reason to take the child, “verbally”, behind the woodshed is because of their failure to exercise personal responsibility. Leadership in the adult world — you know, where we live — is primarily about holding ourselves and those that we “lead” to be personally accountable for what they do and do not do regarding topics with serious consequences. So let us step behind the woodshed and communicate. Yes, this is a bit long. Sorry about that.

Is liberty really important to you?

By all indications I have seen, it is not. Like a child leaving their room a mess or their dirty plates littering the kitchen and thinking that mom will take care of, most expect someone else to take care of their liberty. So I ask again, is liberty really important to you? Pause, take a few moments, and list what you’ve done to protect your liberty this past year. Reading the news, watching Fox news, talking at the water cooler about all the troubles — these things don’t count, do they? What have you gotten off the couch and really done to protect your liberty and that of your family this past year?

Now for the really hard question, do you really think that your liberty will be preserved without being defended? Only the foolish would say yes. The “forces” now assembling to steal your liberty are immense and very well-funded. They are domestic and foreign. The only effective defense those who value their liberty have is strength in numbers — numbers of engaged, informed primary and general election voters who will effectively use their voting power to preserve their liberty by electing, and getting elected , patriots who have the personal political courage to actively defend liberty ALL THE TIME! In other words, the only way to preserve your liberty is to vote, to vote wisely, and to work diligently to gather the strength in numbers necessary to make a difference on election days!

I can’t see the expression on your face. Are we communicating? Are you an American patriot?

Are you an American patriot?

What is an American patriot? I believe that an American patriot holds the U.S. Constitution and the Rule of Law as a sacred trust we call liberty and that we reaffirm our personal obligation to protect our liberty every time we stand and recite the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic (U.S. Constitution) for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice (Rule of Law) for all. Does reciting this pledge mean this to you? Do you think about what the pledge means to you when you recite it?

Is the TEA Party movement succeeding?

No. The reason is why we are standing, figuratively, behind the woodshed. Enough people — to make a difference — don’t care about their liberty. The percentage of adult Americans who are actually patriots by their actions is too scant to make a difference at this time. More importantly, the percentage of adult Americans who actually care about making a difference is woefully inadequate to politically influence those that rule us. Can this be fixed? Certainly! Do you care — really care — that it be fixed? One of many tough questions, right?

What is now wrong with the TEA Party movement?

In a nutshell, a lack of effective solutions to the challenges attacking our liberty.

The phrase “TEA Party movement” has become synonymous with protest, anger, and frustration — frankly, little different than the public protests that we have seen on the news recently regarding tragic events in several American cities. Those protesting in the streets may have a different view of the threats to their liberty, but, fundamentally, their protests and those of the TEA Party movement are the same. Both are experiencing real threats to the “Life, Liberty, and Pursuit of Happiness” undeniable right of Americans declared in our Declaration of Independence. Both are experiencing a fundamental failure of their elected officials to deliver on this basic American promise made when this country was founded. Do you agree?

Why is the TEA Party movement failing?

Through my involvement in the TEA Party movement these past three years I’ve interacted with a number of people who are “self-defined” liberty leaders. They view themselves as being a leader because they organize group expressions of anger and frustration. A number of these folks emerged during the early 2009 and 2010 TEA Party rallies. Then, the focus was on the problems and this is where they mentally stayed — focused on the problems. Hence, six years later few solutions have been implemented. It’s hard to identify and implement solutions when all that is being done is to protest the problems — when this is all that the “leader” knows how or wants to do. You see, the solution part is hard. Also, this focus on the problems is not constrained to just local liberty groups and leaders. It is also quite apparent with several of the national movement groups, much to my disappointment.

As liberty patriots, we must seek and implement effective solutions to the challenges attacking our liberty, don’t we? We must disregard those who only focus on the problems and those who cower in the face of the challenges to our liberty — especially those who “go along to get along” in the political arena. In particular, we must disengage with those groups who only fund raise off our frustration rather than providing and undertaking effective solutions. These groups are wasting your time and filing your inbox with spam.

Here is the #1 rule of politics. It’s very important that every liberty patriot understand this.

Politics is all about WHO rules us and HOW they rule us. If you do NOT like the HOW, you must CHANGE the WHO at the ballot box!

At the recent Cincinnati Tea Party Tax Day Rally, only one speaker really understood this rule — Ted Stevenot. I commend him on conveying this during his remarks. While leaders of several national groups spoke eloquently about the problems and the importance of values, only Ted spoke to the solution. He and a true patriot and veteran, Mr. Rick Heron, are working hard on one solution — the Precinct Project. Participating in this project should be a personal priority of every liberty patriot in the U.S. as an expression of your personal commitment to your pledge of allegiance.

What is the Precinct Project?

The goal of this project (also known as the Gavel Project) is to reassert grassroots voter control of your political party. Our focus is primarily on the Republican Party — the party of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln, both great, accomplished Americans who by word and deed upheld the fundamental American promise of “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness”.

How do we assert control using this project?

Here are the basics. The Republican Party in Ohio (and in most states) is formed at the county level through the election of a representative in each voting precinct. (Hence, the name Precinct Project.) These elected representatives — called something like Precinct Executives or Precinct Captains — form the party’s County Central Committee. This committee, and the county-level party officials they elect, conduct the party’s business in your county.

Anyone registered to vote as a Republican can run to be the Precinct Captain. In Ohio, it takes just five signatures on the form in order to file to be a candidate. Not hard at all is it? The size of the precinct is generally about 250 households. Thus, conducting a campaign to be elected Precinct Captain is very doable. With most Central Committees only meeting four times a year in the evening, the time required is minimal. Thus, the personal burden to restore the traditional American values of Douglass and Lincoln to the Republican Party is not much of a burden, is it? The problem has been that few voters know that the Central Committee exists and what it does. This is intentional! The Republican Party elite want grassroots Republican voters to be mushrooms — kept in the dark and fed …

Next March, 2016, at the presidential primary election, most voters in Ohio will vote to also elect their Precinct Captain. (Some counties vote next in 2018.) Thus, having a candidate on the ballot in your voting precinct to be elected Precinct Captain and who shares your values is the immediate “solution” to many of the political problems facing us. Take back control of your county Republican Party and a giant step to protect liberty has been accomplished. This has already happened in about five Ohio counties.

Why is this important? Because, these county Central Committees endorse candidates and most grassroots Republican voters vote for the candidates on the slate card of endorsed candidates. Thus, and this is very important to understand, the Central Committees effectively pick who will rule us by their endorsements. In the general election, either the Republican endorsed candidate or the Democratic endorsed candidate will be, in most cases, elected. One of the other of these committees has pre-determined who will rule us. Are you feeling like a mushroom?

Asserting grassroots control of these committees is essential to good government. Hence, to provide (1) choice on the ballot and (2) candidates who will have the political courage to restore liberty, we must take back control of the candidate endorsement process. This means electing a majority on the members to the county Central Committee who share your traditional center-right American values. By achieving control of the endorsement process, UNELECTING bad officials can be done by NOT endorsing them and, instead, endorsing a liberty patriot. It’s as simple as this. The political power of endorsement is tremendous and is available to grassroots Republican voters throughout Ohio by asserting control of the Central Committees The Precinct Project aims to realize this political power by transforming your frustration into positive change in WHO rules us. Don’t you want this?

What you should do TODAY!

Everything above has brought our discussion to this point. As a liberty patriot, we each want to do our part. But, what can you do right now — in the next five minutes — to make a real difference. Sign the “Fair and Square Bargain” online petition.

About a year ago, a group of liberty patriots in the Miami Valley met to focus on solutions. We identified a handful of problems to address. One of these was the poor turnout of Ohio Republican voters in the 2012 presidential election.

Did you know that while Romney (2012) got more votes nationally then McCain (2008), Romney got fewer votes in Ohio than McCain despite everything going wrong with the Obama administration. Thus, the Republican nominee lost Ohio and any chance of winning the White House. The tragedy of Obama’s “leadership” these past four years could have been averted had there been Republican Party unity and grassroots Republican voter enthusiasm here in Ohio. Ohio is the Electoral College gateway to the White House for Republicans and will be so again in 2016. Neither the Republican National Committee nor the Kasich-led Ohio Republican Party was able to develop the party unity and enthusiasm needed to win Ohio in 2012. The prospects for 2016 are no better, are they?

The battle to win the White House in 2016 will be full-scale political war.

The progressive Democratic Party has everything on the line to lose. They will do everything possible to win. Against this is a fragmented Republican Party whose current leadership and moneyed supporters are gambling with the future of the country by trying to shape the primary and convention process to favor their pre-selected “winner”. Understand that this is how they think and why they engage in the Republican Party. They gave us the failing campaigns of Ford, Bush (41), Dole, McCain, and Romney and the terrible consequences of the Carter, Clinton, and Obama presidencies. Grassroots Republican voters are now wise to this. An increasing number will no longer will just robotically vote for a candidate with the “R” behind their name on the ballot.

My two primary personal objectives for 2016 are: (1) to have a Republican nominee defeat the Democrat and win the White House and (2) to have conservative Republican candidates have a fair opportunity to win the Republican nomination. I have not picked a candidate to support. It’s too early. My focus is to make the primary and convention undertaken “fair and square”. These objectives are counter to those of the establishment Republican Party. They want “their” candidate to win the nomination and are writing the rules of the primaries and convention to maximize this happening. (Remember, the establishment Republican Party fought Ronal Reagan every step of the way to his winning the nomination. They opposed him then. They are no different now.)

Kasich has moved to deny you a fair vote in the March primary.

In Ohio, the Kasich-led Ohio Republican Party has proposed and the Ohio House has passed a bill to make Ohio a winner-take-all state in the March, 2016 presidential primary. This is a classic establishment Republican Party trap for conservative candidates. While in early voting states, like New Hampshire and South Carolina, where the state’s delegates to the convention are proportionally allocated based on the primary votes cast, in Ohio all delegates would go to the top vote-getter. Thus, if Kasich, for example, were to be the top vote-getter with, say, 35% of the votes cast, he would get all of the delegates. The votes cast by 65% of the grassroots Ohio Republican voters would be for not — as if they never even bothered to vote. This is because in Ohio or any later state the winner-take-all rule adopted by the Republican National Committee holds. Fair, right? No, this is how the primaries and convention are being rigged. What did the Ohio House bill do? It moved the date of the Ohio primary back one week so it falls under the winner-take-all rule. Kasich wanted this and the Republicans in the Ohio House went along with this. (They hold 65 of the 99 Ohio House seats.) Did you want this?

Sign the “Fair and Square Bargain” online petition today!

The only way to counter the rigging of the Republican presidential primaries and convention is to exert substantial social pressure to have the RNC and the candidates abide by a set of ground rules giving grassroots Republican voters a Republican nominee who wins “fair and square”.

The website http://grassrootsvoters.republican has this online petition. The details are explained. It will take about five minutes to review the ground rules and sign the petition. (Note: You must click on the link the in the confirmation email to complete signing the petition. The confirmation email may end up in your spam folder.)

Those who sign the petition will also be contacted about the Precinct Project.

Most folks are not signing the petition.

What is very surprising to me is that most people are not signing the petition. I’ve spent most of the last month promoting this petition with very few folks actually signing it. Without this petition, it is unlikely the Republican Party — our party — will develop the unity and grassroots enthusiasm vital to winning Ohio and the White House in 2016. Ohio will fall to the Democrats just as happened in 2012 despite everything going wrong. The reason is that, like they did for Ronald Reagan, the establishment Republican Party would rather lose the White House than hold a fair primary and convention process where grassroots Republican voters hold the reins of party power. What they count on is this power being surrendered to them by you NOT really caring. Is this true? It appears so. This attitude lost Ohio in 2012.

In the end, the TEA Party movement is failing because those with the real political power — us — to bring about much needed changes do not seem to really care. All it takes is five minutes to sign the online petition and most won’t even bother doing that. You are suspicious and overly cautious. There are no superheroes folks. It’s a fantasy to just think that things will work out. Six years of Obama should convince you otherwise. But, are you convinced? I am led to believe by most folk’s inaction that they don’t really care.

This is why we had this behind-the-woodshed discussion. Time is running out on what needs to be done to bring victory in 2016. Are you a liberty patriot?

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(1) Protecting and defending the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the Rule of Law;
(2) Promoting limited, effective, and transparent local, state, and federal governments;
(3) Promoting personal and governmental fiscal responsibility;
(4) Promoting the free market system; and
(5) Assuring the integrity, transparency, and accountability of all appointed and elected government officials.